Opposite Sex (2000) was a short lived American single-camera comedy/drama about teenage Jed, who after getting dumped by his girlfriend Lisa moves to California with his father and brother Rob and enrolls in the prep Evergreen Academy, unaware that he and two other boys Cary and Phillip are in what used to be an all-girls school, which is slowly going co-ed. Naturally they're coldly treated as outsiders (especially by the school's chief Ice Queen Stella) at first, but form a friendship nonetheless with a couple of more open-minded and accepting female students, the sunny Kate and the more mysterious Miranda.
In its brief run it naturally focused mostly on plots dealing with gender differences & discrepancies as well as some more typical boarding school and teen-angst-type drama. Despite garnering a decent reception, only 8 episodes ended up getting shot and only six aired in the US (although Canada and other countries aired all eight), just one in the long line of Fox shows at the time to almost instantly get the ax.
Tropes in this series include:
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Miranda, though is shown to have a much warmer side to her personality as well.
- Amusing Injuries: Petra, the geeky girl in "The Car Episode," ends up in full traction by the end of the episode (see below)
- Annoying Patient: Petra, the girl Stella and Cary run over with a car they're making out in. They have to wait on her every need so she doesn't out the fact that the Straw Feminist is in a relationship with the Straw Misogynist. She is incredibly annoying...at least until she pays them back with a nice dinner...
- Betty and Veronica: Kate (Betty) and Miranda (Veronica) to Jed (Archie). Also between Kate and Lisa to Jed.
- Brainless Beauty: Robb. As Joely says: "With Robb, what you see is what you get"... but that hasn't stopped the hunky Robb him from attracting his share of female admirers.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Kate, easily the show's sunniest, nicest character and most immediately welcoming to the three boys when they arrive at Evergreen.
- Ice Queen: Stella. Shows some signs of defrosting, especially in "The Field Trip Episode".
- Millennium Bug: In the first episode, there's an announcement at a school assembly that the school is now Y2K compliant. This would have been just a passing reference if the show had debuted in the fall of 1999 as planned; but since it was delayed until the summer of 2000, it became instantly
Hilarious in Hindsight. - Missing Mom: Robb and Jed's mother, who died shorty before the first episode.
- Mistaken for Gay: Kate, by Jed, when she's exchanging shirts with Beth.
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Phillip and Cary, respectively. "One of them's a walking hormone and the other one's a walking GPA!".
- Also a bro contrast in Jed (Sensitive Guy) and Robb (Manly Man).
- Start My Own: Phillip, when Cary is selected over him to join Robb's model UN team.
- Straw Feminist: Stella, the least subtle about her distaste for the school all of a sudden letting boys in.
- Straw Misogynist: Cary, mildly. Also Mr. Oslo in "The Field Trip Episode", who by the end realizes that men are NOT just innately better at politics after all.
- Subtext: Unsubtly, Lisa and Jed talk about who's at fault for their breakup under the guise of a Model UN negotiation.
- Three-Way Sex: It could have happened! Ah, don't be ridiculous! However it sure looked like it was leading that way when Lisa, Beth and Jedd were all back in that hotel room getting into some good old-fashioned room-service porn... before Jed panics and admits his more single-girl romantic desire.
- UST: Cary and Stella. Perhaps more on the side of Slap-Slap-Kiss. and it almost gets resolved, before Jed so rudely interrupts in "The Field Trip Episode".
- With Friends Like These...: More of a straight antagonist early on, Stella soon develops a bit of a frenemy-style relationship with the main clique.
